Why are nearly 25% of British women obese?

[twitterer]

On the news this morning we are told that British women are the fatest in Europe, why? Of course it is down to eating too much and exercising too little. But other populations don't suffer so badly. I wonder if there is more (healthy) pressure from society, men, employers and others to be healthy

I think it's peer pressure. We live in quite a prosperous area with lots of sports mad skinny types. Therefore, you think it's normal to be a healthy size. Perhaps if you lived somewhere where people are big, you accept that putting on weight is normal.

To be honest, I've always been in the correct BMI and I put it down to
3 proper meals a day at normal times. However, I don't have a nasty commute, work averagely hard, and have time to be normal. Plus, sent children to nearest school to give us all an opportunity for a walk each day. (E.g. making our routine involve some exercise).

Modern life conspires to make you fat - whereas in the past working meant toiling on land, burning up energy, now it means sitting in an office or car. I was my thinnest when on maternity leave with two children - constantly carrying, running up and down stairs etc.

At primary level, my children do tons of sport and there are loads of cooking projects. (They think they do too much sport - Friday involved rugby for an hour, a cross-country run and walking 3miles to the rugby and back!)

As for children in buggies - well a four year old who has been at school all day and has a 1.5 mile walk home probably needs a buggy ride. Other four year olds would be picked up by car. I'm very carefully on the buggy judging thing - you have no idea how much activity the child might have done before finally collasping in buggy!

Do British people really don't know how to cook? Tbh i'm not sure i believe this, i think it only exists in daily mail and some silly tv programmes where 'they help the thickos'. If anything i think that in general British people know lots about nutrition and they cook quite well because independence is encouraged here.
I'm going to ruin the myth for you and say that British women aged 25-45yo actually cook a lot more than Spanish women who are mostly relay on their mums for cooking and childcare. And there is no shame or guilt about it, they go straight to bed after work and have a long siesta.

We are caught in a cycle here: perfectionism, long working hours, long commute, guilt. As a resullt we a) don't like ourselves very much and b) 'need' the calories/snacks/sugasrs/large coffees in order to stay awake and to keep running the show.

Read Caitlin Moran on the subject in 'how to be a woman'.

She has a good take on it.

Have skipped here from page 1 so apologies if I repeat any previous comments, just wanted to add my four-penneth-worth...

I am morbidly obese, 5'7 and 19st. I am highly educated and perfectly aware of the health implications of being a chubber. I like food, lots of it. I actually don't care if i'm fat, i like me this way, and if that means i die at 75 instead of 90 then so be it, i'd rather enjoy what time i've got.

My dh is a bit of a health freak, watches what he eats and exercises most days and my dd is actually underweight for her height.

each to their own i say...cake anyone?

"I wouldn't like to see that emulated over here thanks."

insomnia - I remember a friend of mine who had au-paired in Paris in her late teens. She had a lovely figure - slim but not skinny, and was tall. The women she au-paired for was very thin - but was planning on having liposuction because she had an inch of fat around her arse. She also told my friend that she needed to diet as she was too 'big'. Normalising the unhealthy happens both ways.

Molly,I agree that on the whole the younger mums seem to care more about how they look in general, wearing high shoes and makes up and so on.

However I also see a lot of virtually teenage girls with acres of backfat hanging out, so I am not sure where you live but it may not be representative!

Plus, I am not a young mum (not old either, about average) and I do lots of running around in the park playing footie and climbing on the climbing frame until I get told off.

there was a report on Radio 4 a few months ago that said in women, weight decreases with affluence but looking at men there was no correlation between weight and income.

Don't know if anyone else has mentioned it but I'm interested in possible link between BFing levels and obesity levels. Having fed babies in both ways ( my two DCs were BF on demand for an extended time, and I've also looked after babies being FF) I feel that breastfeeding is naturally better at developing a good ability to regulate the baby/child/person's appetite, and encourage a healthy relationship with food throughout life. With bottles there is more of a tendency to feed to a schedule, and to "encourage" baby to finish as much of bottle as possible, though personally I tried not to do this overmuch.

I don't think Britain does very well for breastfeeding rates compared to many other countries ?

I think children need plenty of time to play throughout childhood, including outdoors, too.

Also I'd like to see exercise and sport promoted more for health for everyone, with less emphasis on it's competitive and commercial aspects.

Funny, everyone assumes that if you quit smoking you gain weight. I quit smoking and LOST weight, largely becuase I stopped drinking (I didn't need my self-control erroded!), partly becuase I used to sit in the garden with a coffee and a ciggy (didn't need to torture myself by trying it without a fag!) and partly becuase I ate cherry tomatoes, celery sticks and the like rather than having a ciggy. I know I'm far from unique in quitting without any weight gain - not everyone replaces fags with chocolate!

I totally agree that the vast majority of peoples' perception of what is and isn't a healthy weight is way off beam; bein overweight has become so normal that those who are obese appear to be only "a bit" overweight.

Oi, us 'older mums' can run too

OrmIrian @ 15:33:09 i totally agree.

Yes and climb climbing frames with the best of them

Re whoever it was accusing us of the ubiquitous 'stealth boasting' about feeling crap on a BMI of 23 - not so. I don't give a toss about boasting on a website. I'm just saying - life is easier with a lower BMI ypu feel brighter more sprightly

Again it's seen as being 'smug' not 'healthy' to be thin

I know older mums that run but you dont see as many hanging around teh fun houses on all the things as you do young mums and dads. Well not in my area anyway, especially the young dads and young uncles think they likeitmore than the kids!

cheermum

Sorry but if you are morbidly obese you are unlikely to see 75...55 is more likely. And even if you did reach 75 your joints will be in a terrible state especially knees and hips causing lots of pain, immobility etc. Don't you want to be able to play with your future grandkids?
It might feel ok now but being massively overweight will not be pleasant in older age.
Again sorry I don't mean to be harsh

I think we have a culture of "busyness" here that isn't so prevalent on the Continent. We are under pressure to be so busy that we don't take time to cook (why should a woman, with kids, be expected to spend her hours after work peeling onions?). She pops in to Marksies' instead and grabs whatever tasty, ready-made stuff therre is, and who can blame her? Others of us who work pop out to Pret for a sarnie plus massive cappucino to eat at our desks. Others simply can't be bothered to pay attention to what they are eating and just grab whatever's available between appointments.

Add in the easy availability of snacks, kids not playing out, car-based travel, kids not walking to school, normalisation and acceptance of the bigger figure, a culture of entitlement and an acceptance that it's OK to eat whatever, whenever, and it's a wonder anyone stays slim!!

portions are too big, stomachs are too big, people are to fat, so we have lost perspective of what you can reasonable consume and what is a healthy weight.

and there is a lot of denial, otherwise we could not continue to do what we like.

Cheermum but inevitably you will end up feeling lime rubbish and costing the nhs a lot of money

notnOtter it's not seen as smug to be thin, it's smug to draw attention to it, when it's something we all aspire to but often fail to achieve. Like being wealthy/successful/having shiny hair/whatever.

McDonalds on every corner, plus all the coffee shops selling buckets of coffee with cream.
Culture of eating on the hoof
Kids more sedentary than before
Still a culture of 'chubby kids = good' in some areas (ie that nurse in east London who killed her toddler by force feeding her because she was obsessed with fattening her up)
More and more people driving when they don't have to
Chips and other fast foods - we love them!
People don't seem bothered of they put of a bit of weight. When I was younger, you would have hidden behind baggy clothes, but now women aren't trying to hide it!
Portions of food are getting bigger and bigger
Booze
Not enough exercise

'Temptation. Lots of delicious, easily available foods.' I agree with belgo and others who posted along these lines. Junk is everywhere. All my older DC friends eat crap whenever they can. It's like an addiction. Also as has been said, less exercise and lack of time for cooking from scratch. People get a taste for sugary or spicy or fatty and then other stuff seems bland.

It is an addiction!

In a discussion about bmi we are not allowed to mention ours ?

In fairness wahwahwah, the woman you are talking about is from is from Africa so that's got nothing to do with our culture.

It's an emotive issue, notanotter you know that. It's all in the tone.

I am always a bit about a) food being expensive and b) how difficult it is to eat healthily. DP and I are skint, and for the past 4 months I have kept The Strictest Spreadsheet of all our shopping habits.

Food costs us less than £47 per week for 2 adults and 2 children age 2 and 4 (and the 4 year old eats enormous amounts), although when I factor in treats like chocolate, alcohol and takeaways it goes up to an average of less than £54. This is pretty consistent.

My golden rule is to buy unlimited amounts of any fruit & veg I want - it's the cheapest and most voluminous food. Chips are never going to be cheaper than potatoes because of the processing involved.

The cheapest food you can buy is fruit & veg. Bananas - 52p per kg, chocolate is about 65p for a 100g bar (£6.50 a kg). Go figure. I don't buy cheap junk food because we can't afford it.

We eat very very well btw, minimal amounts of pre-cooked food, and it takes as much time to cook a meal as it does to ping a microwave - you always see this on TV cooking shows, cooking doesn't take chefs hours does it?